Saturday, June 27, 2009

Urs Tinner et al, Free at last

"The Swiss government on Wednesday ordered the quick destruction of about 100 pages of evidence linked to an investigation of three Swiss engineers suspected of smuggling nuclear weapons technology. The cabinet said the documents were “the most explosive” material in a file of more than 1,000 pages related to the case against the Tinner family, which is suspected of links to the smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, one of the creators of Pakistan’s atomic bomb. The documents are copies of files destroyed in 2007 under a previous order that had led to protests from lawmakers and legal experts, who said the government had undermined the prosecution in the smuggling case. Citing security concerns and its legal obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the cabinet said that about 100 pages dealing with atomic weapons designs would be shredded shortly to keep them out of “the wrong hands.”"